Revisitation

This post ...

I made it on my first day of college. More than four years ago, it was. Indeed.

Every now and then I bump into this place, one way or another, and it is rather crazy to see at once how very much and how very little I've changed. What delights me is the obvious joy I took in writing these posts.

Now I start a new phase of my life: graduate school, teaching, living on my own. Time, I imagine, will be less available than it's ever been. (Why is it taking me HOURS to read assignments and plan classes??)

And yet ... maybe I should start blogging more regularly again. Not simply livejournal posts about personal things, but stories that relish life and semi-philosophical rambles.

I know I tend to idealize the past, but I feel like blogging like I did here, at least in some small way, made me a deeper person.

Hm.

Because no one ever reads here anymore, and that's ok ...

But right now I feel horribly lonely. I suspect it's rather silly of me. How one evening not going as planned could upset me so. Maybe I'm tired. Maybe I'm stressed. I ... don't know.

But I am lonely. So very much so.

On miracles, and boys that need smacking.

Because some really do.

Need smacking, that is.

Boys, not miracles.

Allow me to elaborate:

I work at a supermarket as a cashier, for those who didn't know. (Or a grocery store. Supermarket is a rather grandiose term for the place I work. :-D ) It's right on the outskirts of our little town, and though there are other stores nearby, there aren't any others within a 15 minute drive or so. (Which, to the people around here, is seemingly a great distance.) In any case, it's a nice place to work, so far as college-student jobs go. You get to know the regulars. They remember your name, and seek out your register from all the others, and notice when you're not there for a week. It makes you feel like a part of something. :-)

IWhat truly brightens my day, though, are the kids. Shy ones, talkative ones, girls with big and bright smiles or shy little boys - they all leave me with a smile on my face and a warm glow in my heart.

Except one.

There is a lady with three children, the youngest a baby, the oldest about ... four? Five? You always know they're there five minutes after they walk in. Either because you hear the mother's voice yelling from across the store - or because the lights go off.

This little boy knows where the light switch is, and he abuses that knowledge. And the mother doesn't stop him. She just yells.

And yells.

And yells.

It is a miracle that woman still has a voice!

I try not to judge. She seems unable to manage her children at all; but then, the boy is *very* bad. He's so disruptive, and there's nothing we can do about it except watch and clean up after him. But perhaps I would do worse with a "trouble child" of my own. It's hard to trace cause and effect.

But the yelling has to stop. Because they don't hear it anymore. It's a constant stream of *noise*, and it's never followed by anything. When all the mother gives them is words, why should her children listen?

She said to me one day (very vehemntly), "I wish you were still allowed to beat your kids."

Meanwhile, Jacob was running off with a cart used for loading things, heading straight for the door.

She turned helplessly to the manager and said, "Could you please get him?"

After several more mishaps (involving candy, licking the register, and bolting across the store again) and much more yelling, the boy was seated in the cart. While his mother strapped his sister in, I placed a pen on the counter for her to give me her signature ... and he grabbed it.

Then he looked at me, holding it just beyond my reach, waiting for my reaction.

And I looked back at him, and said, in a very low and threatening voice:

"No. Give me that now."

And he gave it to me immediately.

I stared at him several moments, and he stared back. And he didn't move a muscle after that.

This was several days ago. Today he was just as misbehaved as ever - but the way he looked at me showed he remembered, and was watching.

*****

But that was not a miracle, by a longshot. And a miracle I promised! :-D

Some friends of ours in MI, for various reasons (none of which are their own fault), have been unemployed for some time. They have four children (the eldest of whom is six or seven years old) and are expecting another, so things are very, very difficult for them right now. Despite their circumstances, however, they will not use birth control. They have remained open to life and to God's plan all through this time, placing their trust in Him.

(In fact, if you would say a prayer for them, their names are Marie and John. For those of you who don't understand how the whole birth control thing would matter at all, ignore it. You'll still appreciate what follows. ;-) )

One day a week or two ago, they were all piling out of the van, and Marie tried to shut the passenger door. It wouldn't close. So she slammed it again, harder - and still it wouldn't shut. She slammed it five or six times - and then suddenly saw the reason it wouldn't close.

Her oldest son's hand was caught in it.

Marie ran screaming into the house. John ran around to see what was wrong, and when he took his son's hand ... it was horrible. Bloody, mangled, broken ... ruined. He dropped to his knees on the driveway, and said out loud: Why? Lord, we have trusted you, we have remained open to your will even during this time ... what are we going to do?

And when he looked down at his son's hand, it was healed, with nothing more than a red line across the palm.

Trust in God ... He loves you. He watches you. And that love is beyond anything we can imagine. I remember realizing for the first time that God doesn't have emotions - because they are created things, part of humanity. Jesus, of course, experienced them; but the love of God isn't an emotion.

It's something so much bigger, deeper, greater than we can imagine. If we knew, we could not stand it.

He clothes the lilies of the fields, and knows when a sparrow falls. The hairs on your head are counted.

Have a beautiful day everyone. :-)

No use crying over spilt coffee ...

Well. I could (coughcoughshouldcoughcough) be working on my Shakespeare exam. But I have various good things to tell - at least, things that struck me as blogworthy, even if some of them are rather random.

Near 10 pm Sunday night, I stuck my head inside a piano. I slid back the front panels on our ancient upright (used to be a player piano, but they removed the mechanical innards), and - there I went! Why, you may ask? I was investigating. I wanted to see how thick the wires where; how sturdy the bolts that held them in place; how far my arm could reach towards the end. It was as though I were planning to take it apart.

And I was. Just not really.

We'll call it "research" and leave it at that. :-D

Then there's Dr. O'Connor. I had an appointment with him last week (that's a story in itself, which some of you have heard already); and he lent me his Flannery O'Connor book to read over the summer. I was very excited, because 1) I've been meaning to read her; 2) it was exciting to have a prof lend me a book :-) ; and 3) I have forgotten my third reason. (No more IMing and blogging at once!)

So I sat with my morning cup of coffee, ready to crack open the book. When suddenly my dog, who was sitting on the other end of the couch with my brother, lunges at me in an attempt to get off, spilling coffee all over the couch, the floor, myself ... and the book.

I literally screamed. I dashed into the kitchen, book in hand, and wiped it off. Thank GOODNESS, it only got on the cover, and wiped off easily!! The front page is a little stained, like it got some water on it; but that's it.

A very close call. O_O



This afternoon I bought deoderant. It was so exciting!! (The sad thing is I'm serious. *grin*)


One more final - Shakespeare. And ... Kim is going to kill me, but ... I'm excited to take it. :-) I'll miss Shakespeare very much. But I have a feeling you'll spot me now and then, still lugging around that thirty pound book, with little page-markers sticking out of it in all directions. :-)

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,
I cried I to dream again. (The Tempest, 3. 2)

(Originally posted Wednesday, April 18th)

Something very unexpected happened last night.

I was elected treasurer for the Newman Club.

Now, I haven't been around the Newman club much lately. It makes me feel a little guilty, especially since my friend Heather is the president this year. But ... I don't know. It's basically the same as any nondenominational Christian group ... which is fine; but that's not what it's there for. It's there for Catholics, as a place where they can grow and support each other in their Catholic faith. (Believe me, as a Catholic there are things you do not say around nonCatholic Christians unless you want to get eaten alive.) And the people there, well ... they don't really care that they're Catholic as opposed to any other denomination. They don't know the first thing about their faith.

And it frustrated me.

But before night class, Heather stopped me in the hall, and we were talking, and I mentioned I'd be there that evening. Good! she said. We're having elections. Would you be an officer?

Now. Normally, if someone asked me to be the officer of something, unless it was something I loved, I would be very put off. I get stressed easily enough as it is ... and ... the Newman club?

But I felt a strange openness. Not a desire to accept; but the feeling that, whatever happened would happen - it was in God's hands.

I can't sufficiently describe to you how opposite this reaction was to what I would have expected, and how much it surprised me ... It was so NOT me, that I thought - maybe this is from God?

Anyhow. Three hours later I was treasurer. (Almost vice president, hehe.) The officers, I understand, work more as a unit than anything else; so I'll have more influence than you'd normally think of a treasurer as having.

End part one. Cue part two: I woke up this morning. I went to class. And then I went to the Newman Center's Wednesday Mass.

It turned out to be only a communion service, because Fr. Armstrong couldn't make it. But all the usual folks were there - including the girl I notice there quite often, but for some reason had never talked to.

I had a lot of homework to do, so I was out pretty quickly afterwards. I was literally down the sidewalk and around the corner when Diane (the "youth minister", so to speak, who runs the center) rushed outside and called my name. I returned to receive a hug and congratulations; and she told me: "Rosemary ... I am so, so glad you are an officer. I think you're going to bring a lot here, and change things for the better."

Before, I was a little cautious of saying "this is God's will." Sometimes things do just happen, after all; and ... I don't know. I was scared to think it, because 1) it made it into a much bigger commitment for me to think of it in that light, and 2) it felt proud. Because that was exactly what I thought: maybe, maybe God could use me to take away the fluffiness, the lack of focus, to make it truly, passionately, unabashedly Catholic.

But here was Diane, echoing my thoughts. And I told her what I felt about it: how disappointed I was in the Newman Club, and sad. And she agreed. And you know something? With Heather, and the girl elected president ... I think we can do it.

And then the girl walked out.

Her name is Stephanie.

She wanted to go to Steubenville, but it was too expensive. And she came to visit SRU - this liberal, immoral school where you're all but alone in your faith when it comes to fellow students sharing your beliefs - and she sat down in the adoration chapel. And there, in that room, was every reason - the Reason - she wanted to attend Steubie; and if He was there, something good must be on this campus. And so SRU it was.

Sound familiar?

That's because the "she" in that paragraph is me. And yet as I told her that story, Stephanie's eyes welled up; because, word for word, it is her story too.

I can't believe I haven't talked to this girl before!! But God has given her to me now - and His timing is impeccable, as always.

After half an hour of amazing conversation, I called Liz to tell her my news; and she read me passages from the book Captivating, including a passage from Hosea, which ... well, I was literally crying. Because it spoke to me so very exactly. I shall look up the passage if I can and post it here.

God is so amazing, and wise, and His love amazes me at every turn.

4.0

This is the me I should be.

I should be keeping up my 4.0 QPA with little struggle - just true work, within my reach and abilities.

I should be writing. Not only writing, but sending out stories; composing an novel; getting involved in all sorts of networking as an author; plunging myself into editing duties at DKA.

I should be keeping in touch with all my friends.

I should be reading Scripture every day, and spending time with God every night.

I should be going to bed earlier so I'm not exhausted each afternoon.

I should not be afraid to speak out to the girls at work about morality; nor should I be judging them, or letting them tell me about their morally crappy lives; they should all love me and therefore wish to emulate me in every way because they see the light of Christ that is in me.

I should change all hearts around me - those that need to learn, should be taught; those who need encouragement, should be made happy; I should know all things of all people, and make them better.

I should not be impatient with my family.



This is the me that I am.

I am procrastinating typing my two page Shakespeare response due tomorrow, even though in the morning I'll have to do Philosophy and in the afternoon I'll be working on a newsletter, therefore making this the only time I have for it.

I haven't written a word of fiction except for class since the semester began.

I've read all of two or three submissions in the past few weeks.

I haven't spoken to Katie in ages; there are three letters sitting unanswered from distant friends; etcetera.

Megan asked me why I was so mad when I told her the pill would kill her baby if she was pregnant.

I have a B so far in Meteorology, and everyone looks at me weird when I complain about it - while all I can think of is that I want to be a Presidential Scholar again next year.

I am always glad when I set aside time for prayer; but to do so is a struggle.



This is the me God wants me to be.

To love Him above all things, and to let go. To aim for my best, and not for perfection. To consecrate to Him my efforts with hope and love; my successes with gratitude and humility; my failures with faith. To not be all things for all people, but to be what He created me to be. Which is:

His.

Heehee.